2013 Stoke-O-Rama

The Gudauskas brothers running a stoke-inspired grom contest is like Michael Jordan holding an elite youth basketball tournament. Pat, Dane and Tanner are trailblazers in the field of froth. They are simply the best in the world at being stoked. So on Saturday, the Stoke-O-Rama, is only destined to be perfect. Unlike other pro-hosted grom events, the Stoke-O-Rama isn’t about discovering the best local surfer and handing them a trophy. It’s about, drumroll please, getting stoked. Dane fills us in.

SURFING MAGAZINE: Tell us about the Stoke-O-Rama.Dane Gudauskas: It’s a free event that we put on for the kids from town. We use the Eddie Aikau format where every kid gets to surf twice. It’ll be 15 minute long 6-man heats, and the top two waves from both your first heat and second heat factor into your total. Then we take the top 6 from that and put them in the final. We have a scoreboard and all the kids watch it to see if they’re gonna make the cut. It’s rad.

Has the city of San Clemente been cool with you running it?
We’ve had the idea for years, but it took us a little while to get in touch with the right people and get in there, because T-Street is really hard to get a permit for. We’ve been working with the Friends of San Clemente Foundation and they do great things with the parks and rec and they’ve been super cool with helping us. They really helped us work it out with the city. Last year we had to go and present it to the city council and it was a wild experience. It’s definitely a lot of work.

But the kids probably love it.
Totally. It’s not about who wins or loses, it’s about getting everyone together more than anything else. It’s about getting stoked and hanging out with your friends. We just try to make it a really good day for the kids and bring the community together. Kids feel that energy and it makes them understand that surfing’s not about points, serious attitudes and coaches.

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